Republicans Search For Answers As GOP-Led Probe Fails To Find Conclusive Evidence Against Hunter Biden's Ukraine Affiliation

A GOP-led investigation failed to find any indication that then-Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and his association with Burisma Holdings had any impact on U.S. policy and the removal of Ukraine's top prosecutor.

The findings, outlined in an 87-page report, don’t support the accusation President Trump and other Republicans have made about Democratic presidential candidate Biden’s actions regarding Ukraine, including threats to withhold U.S. aid unless prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired for failing to pursue a corruption investigation of Burisma.

“Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board cast a shadow over the work of those advancing anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine,” the report alleged.

Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said prior to the report’s release that Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, used the resources of the panel to “subsidize a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars — an attack founded on a long-disproven, hard-core right-wing conspiracy theory.”

The Republican investigation examined Hunter Biden’s financials, and marked payments he received from foreign entities as potential criminal activity.

In 2015 George Kent, the acting deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine at the time, raised concerns that Hunter Biden's presence on the Burisma board made it awkward for U.S. officials.

“The presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine,” Kent wrote in a September 2016 email to other senior State Department officials.

But, Kent said, the U.S. government never took into account Hunter Biden’s presence on the board when making decisions about Burisma.

“So there was no time, as I’ve testified, that the U.S. government, the U.S. embassy ever made a decision about [Burisma owner Mykola] Zlochevsky or Burisma where we took the presence of a private citizen on the board into account. We made the decision on the merits,” Kent told Senate investigators.

Republicans have long said Hunter Biden’s service on the Burisma board represented a conflict of interest. Democrats maintain there is no evidence Joe Biden distorted U.S. policy to favor his son.

Two Obama administration officials raised concerns to the White House in 2015 about Hunter Biden serving on the board of a Ukrainian company while his father led U.S. policy efforts in the region.